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  THE HONOR OF THE BIG SNOWS

  By JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD

  Author of "The Danger Trail," "The Courage of Captain Plum," etc.

  NEW YORK

  1911

  CHAPTER I

  THE MUSIC

  "Listen, John--I hear music--"

  The words came in a gentle whisper from the woman's lips. One white,thin hand lifted itself weakly to the rough face of the man who waskneeling beside her bed, and the great dark eyes from which he hadhidden his own grew luminously bright for a moment, as she whisperedagain:

  "John--I hear--music--"

  A sigh fluttered from her lips. The man's head drooped until it restedvery near to her bosom. He felt the quiver of her hand against hischeek, and in its touch there was something which told John Cumminsthat the end of all life had come for him and for her. His heart beatfiercely, and his great shoulders shook with the agony that was eatingat his soul.

  "Yes, it is the pretty music, my Melisse," he murmured softly, chokingback his sobs. "It is the pretty music in the skies."

  The hand pressed more tightly against his face.

  "It's not the music in the skies, John. It is real--REAL music that Ihear--"

  "It's the sky music, my sweet Melisse! Shall I open the door so that wecan hear it better?"

  The hand slipped from his cheek. Cummins lifted his head, slowlystraightening his great shoulders as he looked down upon the whiteface, from which even the flush of fever was disappearing, as he hadseen the pale glow of the northern sun fade before a thickening snow.He stretched his long, gaunt arms straight up to the low roof of thecabin, and for the first time in his life he prayed--prayed to the Godwho had made for him this world of snow and ice and endless forest verynear to the dome of the earth, who had given him this woman, and whowas now taking her from him.

  When he looked again at the woman, her eyes were open, and there glowedin them still the feeble fire of a great love. Her lips, too, pleadedwith him in their old, sweet way, which always meant that he was tokiss them, and stroke her hair, and tell her again that she was themost beautiful thing in the whole world.

  "My Melisse!"

  He crushed his face to her, his sobbing breath smothering itself in thesoft masses of her hair, while her arms rose weakly and fell around hisneck. He heard the quick, gasping struggle for breath within her bosom,and, faintly again, the words:

  "It--is--the--music--of--my--people!"

  "It is the music of the angels in the skies, my sweet Melisse! It isOUR music. I will open the door."

  The arms had slipped from his shoulders. Gently he ran his roughfingers through the loose glory of the woman's hair, and stroked herface as softly as he might have caressed the cheek of a sleeping child.

  "I will open the door, Melisse."

  His moccasined feet made no sound as he moved across the little roomwhich was their home. At the door he paused and listened; then heopened it, and the floods of the white night poured in upon him as hestood with his eyes turned to where the cold, pale flashes of theaurora were playing over the pole. There came to him the hissing,saddening song of the northern lights--a song of vast, unendingloneliness, which they two had come to know as the music of the skies.

  Beyond that mystery-music there was no sound. To the eyes of JohnCummins there was no visible movement of life. And yet he saw signs ofit--signs which drew his breath from him in choking gulps, and whichsent him out into the night, so that the woman might not hear.

  It was an hour past midnight at the post, which had the Barren Lands atits back door. It was the hour of deep slumber for its people; butto-night there was no sleep for any of them. Lights burned dimly in thefew rough log homes. The company's store was aglow, and the factor'soffice, a haven for the men of the wilderness, shot one gleaming yelloweye out into the white gloom. The post was awake. It was waiting. Itwas listening. It was watching.

  As the woman's door opened, wide and brimful of light, a door of one ofthe log houses opened, and then another, and out into the night, likedim shadows, trod the moccasined men from the factor's office, andstood there waiting for the word of life or death from John Cummins. Intheir own fashion these men, who, without knowing it, lived very nearto the ways of God, sent mute prayers into the starry heavens that themost beautiful thing in the world might yet be spared to them.

  It was just two summers before that this beautiful thing had come intoCummins' life, and into the life of the post. Cummins, red-headed,lithe as a cat, big-souled as the eternal mountain of the Crees, andthe best of the company's hunters, had brought Melisse thither as hisbride. Seventeen rough hearts had welcomed her. They had assembledabout that little cabin in which the light was shining now, speechlessin their adoration of this woman who had come among them, their caps intheir hands, their faces shining, their eyes shifting before theglorious ones that looked at them and smiled at them as the woman shooktheir hands, one by one.

  Perhaps she was not strictly beautiful, as most people judge; but shewas beautiful here, four hundred miles beyond civilization. Mukee, thehalf-Cree, had never seen a white woman, for even the factor's wife waspart Chippewayan; and no one of the others went down to the edge of thesouthern wilderness more than once each twelvemonth or so.

  Melisse's hair was brown and soft, and it shone with a sunny glory thatreached far back into their conception of things dreamed of but neverseen. Her eyes were as blue as the early wild flowers that came afterthe spring floods, and her voice was the sweetest sound that had everfallen upon their ears. So these men thought when Cummins first broughthome his wife, and the masterpiece which each had painted in his souland brain was never changed. Each week and month added to thedeep-toned value of that picture, as the passing of a century might addto a Raphael or a Vandyke.

  The woman became more human, and less an angel, of course, but thatonly made her more real, and allowed them to become acquainted withher, to talk with her, and to love her more. There was no thought ofwrong, for the devotion of these men was a great, passionless loveunhinting of sin. Cummins and his wife accepted it, and added to itwhen they could, and were the happiest pair in all that vast Northland.

  The girl--she was scarce more than budding into womanhood--fell happilyinto the ways of her new life. She did nothing that was elementallyunusual, nothing more than any pure woman reared in the love of God andof a home would have done. In her spare hours she began to teach thehalf-dozen wild little children about the post, and every Sunday shetold them wonderful stories out of the Bible. She ministered to thesick, for that was a part of her code of life. Everywhere she carriedher glad smile, her cheery greeting, her wistful earnestness, tobrighten what seemed to her the sad and lonely lives of these silentmen of the North.

  And she succeeded, not because she was unlike other millions of herkind, but because of the difference between the fortieth degree and thesixtieth--the difference in the viewpoint of men who fought themselvesinto moral shreds in the big game of life and those who lived athousand miles nearer to the dome of the earth.

  A few days before there had come a wonderful event in the history ofthe company's post. A new life was born into the little cabin ofCummins and his wife. After this the silent, wordless worship of theirpeople was filled with something very near to pathos. Cummins' wife wasa mother! She was one of them now, an indissoluble part of theirexistence--a part of it as truly as the strange lights for everhovering over the pole, as surely as the countless stars that neverleft the night skies, as surely as the endless forests and the deepsnows!

  Then had come the sudden change, and the gloom, that brought with itthe shadow of death, fell like a pall u
pon the post, stifling its life,and bringing with it a grief that those who lived there had never knownbefore.

  There came to them no word from Cummins now.

  He stood for a moment before his lighted door, and then went back, andthe word passed softly from one to another that the most beautifulthing in the world was still living her sweet life in that little cabinat the end of the clearing.

  "You hear the music in the skies--now, my Melisse?" whispered the man,kneeling beside her again. "It is very pretty to-night!"

  "It was not that," repeated the woman.

  She attempted to stroke his face, but Cummins saw nothing of theeffort, for the hand lay all but motionless. He saw nothing of thefading softness that glowed in the big, loving eyes, for his own eyeswere blinded by a hot film. And the woman saw nothing of the hot film,so torture was saved them both. But suddenly the woman quivered, andCummins heard a thrilling sound.

  "It is the music!" she panted. "John, John, it is--themusic--of--my--people!"

  The man straightened himself, his face turned to the open door. Heheard it now! Was it the blessed angels coming for his Melisse? Herose, a sobbing note in his throat, and went, his arms stretched out,to meet them. He had never heard a sound like that--never in all hislife in this endless wilderness.

  He went from the door out into the night, and, step by step, throughthe snow toward the black edge of the spruce forest. The sobs fellchokingly from his lips, and his arms were still reaching out to greetthis messenger of the God of his beloved; for Cummins was a man of thewild and mannerless ways of a savage world, and he knew not what tomake of this sweetness that came to them from out of the depths of theblack forest.

  "My Melisse! My Melisse!" he sobbed.

  A figure came from the shadows, and with the figure came the music,sweet and soft and low. John Cummins stopped and turned his facestraight up to the sky. His heart died within him.

  The music ceased, and when he looked again the figure was close to him,staggering as it walked, and a face white and thin and starved camewith it. It was a boy's face.

  "For the museek of the violon--somet'ing to eat!" he heard, and thethin figure swayed and fell almost into his arms. The voice came weakagain. "Thees is Jan--Jan Thoreau--and his violon--"

  The woman's bloodless face and her great staring dark eyes greeted themas they entered the cabin. As the man knelt beside her again, andlifted her head against his breast, she whispered once more:

  "It is the--music--of my people--the violin!"

  John Cummins turned his head.

  "Play!" he breathed.

  "Ah, the white angel is seek--ver' seek," murmured Jan, and he drew hisbow gently across the strings of his violin.

  From the instrument there came something so soft and sweet that JohnCummins closed his eyes as he held the woman against his breast andlistened. Not until he opened them again, and felt a strange chillagainst his cheek, did he know that his beloved's soul had gone fromhim on the gentle music of Jan Thoreau's violin.